If you watch “American Idol,” then you know the phrase, “You’re going to Hollywood!” If you’ve heard our “Coors Light King (or Queen) of Baltimore Sportstalk” you now know the phrase: “You’re going to Dundalk!”

We decided to not eliminate any of the 13 candidates and have all of them come out to Dundalk do a “live” segment in a crowded tavern with celebrity judges and a whole group of WNST staffers. So, on Wednesday, everyone is invited to come out and meet, greet and cheer for your favorites in our competition.

The party starts at 7 p.m. and each of the 13 will have a “mystery” assignment. As you can imagine, we have some surprises up our sleeve. Plus, Donna’s Tavern in Dundalk has a great stage, excellent food and friendly folks.

Here is the note I sent out to the hopefuls on Saturday:

Hello future King (or Queen):

After deliberating through the week and reading and listening and watching your work, we’ve decided that cutting people from the “Coors Light King (or Queen) of Baltimore Sportstalk” competition at this point would be counterproductive to the process in a few ways:

1. I sense all of you are committed and serious about wanting to win and continue
2. I sense all of you dread “getting cut”
3. I’d really like to see and hear all of you do sports talk – especially in front of a live crowd – one more time
4. I think it’ll be more fun and more interesting and entertaining with more participants on Wednesday night
5. I think it’ll be fun to have a “mix and mingle” night in general with all of these interesting, different Baltimore sports fans in one place at one time

So, if you’re still interested — and I hope you are — I look forward to seeing all 13 of you Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Donna’s Tavern on Pine Avenue in Dundalk for a night of mystery and laughs and Coors Light and food.

We will have each of you doing a five-minute “live bar show” that we’ll audio and video for future use at WNST.net. You will not be given any clues or information ahead of time. All of you will be given your “assignment” around 7 p.m. at Donna’s. Please try to arrive around 6:30.

It’ll be like American Idol, only in Dundalk instead of Hollywood.

Come as you are (it’s casual), bring some friends and/or family if you wish, and we’ll bring some celebrity judges and surprises and maybe even a few WNST listeners.

You’ll be doing no more than five minutes of “work” on Wednesday night. So don’t sweat it too much. Or think about it too much. If you’re truly a Baltimore sports “expert” – and that is our expectation — this should be a relatively easy assignment.

At the end of the evening, we will announce the finalists for the championship live show at Padonia Station on Wednesday, May 27th.

In the meantime, let’s have some fun this Wednesday at Donna’s.
6607 Pine Ave
Baltimore, MD 21222
(410) 633-6677